Emissary

The Emissary raced through the opening in the world-eater, the last few pursuing snubfighters either pulled back or crashed into the vessel, unable to match her precise and fast dive through the opening made by the pulse-wave cannon.

The tall, humanoid mech skidded to a halt on its metal feet as Stel gasped in exhaustion, panting hard and fighting back emotions. Rage and sadness were threatening to take over, but she knew she needed to focus right now. Looking around, the Emissary appeared to be in a vast chamber, the walls looked like pock-marked asteroid with little red "veins" running all around the room. She began to walk slowly, listening and watching for signs of danger. Behind and above her, the hole she had opened was beginning to close, the material of the very ship shifting and rolling to close the opening and reseal the room away from the outer stratosphere of the dead world.

As Stel walked the Emissary deeper into the dark chamber, she flicked the mech's view between night vision and infrared, hoping to see evidence of hostile life. Something she could destroy and take revenge upon. The night vision showed little more than the empty chamber, but the infrared told a different story. Those "veins" all around the room were hot, pouring out warmth and burning bright on the thermal imaging.

Stel took her left hand cannon, checked its ammunition readout to find very few shots left, and aimed at one of the nearest veins, firing a lone shot into it.

The ship around her screamed in Stel's head again, reverberating around the empty walls as a red ooze poured out from where Stel shot it.

"You... will not... harm us..."

Stel shook her head in discomfort as the voice echoed in her mind again. She took note that damaging the ship seemed to hurt this voice, whomever this being was they seemed bonded to the massive ship. Stel kept walking deeper into the chamber, heading for what looked like an entrance.

"Yeah? Come out here and stop me, then." Stel said aloud, wondering if the voice could hear her.

As if on cue, a loud thudding alerted Stel to movement behind her. Turning quickly, Stel's breath caught in her chest. Before her stood an angular, amethyst-purple mech with what looked like the same asteroid-metal and red veined material from the ship bonded to the mech's frame.

"It... can't be..." Stel breathed. Before her was Mila's mech, the same one Ryn had carried into battle, years ago.

"You... will... succumb." The voice whispered again.

The purple mech sprang forward, a gun in each hand blazing into action, causing Stel to yelp and boost away, bullets skittering off her hull, her thin shields still not recovered from the pulse-wave shot. Stel was about to fire back, but knew she might need the few shots left in her gun. Instead, she flicked on the missile launcher control, bringing the small launcher up on her left shoulder and linking two missiles to fire at the fast-moving mech.

The missiles lanced out of their firing tubes but narrowly missed the mech, exploding on the floor of the ship. The screams returned, reverberating through the very fabric of reality around Stel. She winced but noticed the amethyst mech locked up for a brief moment. Before she could act on that information, the mech was back on the attack, firing again and again as it chased Stel.

Realizing she wouldn't last in the open space of the chamber, not against the mech's speed and constant assault, Stel made for that exit she had spotted earlier, boosting with what speed she could manage in the dimness and skidding through the opening into a smaller but still sizable chamber. This one was... different.

The masses of red veins seemed more numerous and dense, the very walls seemed to pulse and throb, like a heartbeat. The purple mech chased Stel into the chamber but promptly stopped firing when it entered, skidding to a halt a short distance from the Emissary.

"Depart... leave... flee..." The voice... pleaded to Stel. It sounded desperate, even as it invaded her mind.

Stel shook her head and relinked her missiles. The purple mech sprang into movement again and dashed forward, catching the first missile in the shoulder, its arm shattering into millions of pieces as the missile exploded. The second one went wide and gave the mech time to reach the Emissary, a blade of steel ejecting from its surviving arm tore through the Emissary's left shoulder, ripping the missile launcher away and causing significant damage to Stel's left arm in general. Warning alarms went off in the Emissary's cockpit and Stel grunted as she was thrown sideways, trying to avoid the amethyst mech, but too slowly to totally avoid damage.

Stel looked down to see her own mech's melee weapon, the blue energy beam, was still active. Taking a chance, she used the last bullets in her cannon to fire at the surrounding chamber, not so much caring if she hit the mech but instead aiming for the red veins. The ship began to scream in response and the mech, predictably, locked up. With a burst of speed, Stel raced forward and plunged the energy beam into the mech's chest, dragging it sideways to nearly bisect the angular humanoid mech.

The amethyst mech fell to the deck as the ship recovered from its wounds. Stel looked down at the barely moving machine and turned, stomping deeper into the new chamber, following the veins as they headed toward a central location.

The next chamber over seemed to be their destination and as Stel broke her way into it, high above her, was a faintly glowing, pulsing, red "heart."

"Leave... do not... continue..." The voice demanded. Stel and the Emissary, both exhausted from the attack, continued. Stel brought up the pulse-wave cannon controls again, starting to charge up the devastating weapon.

"I think you've done enough damage already..." Stel muttered as she made ready to fire. Suddenly, the walls all around her burst and dozens of small creatures raced out, charging at her mech. Boosting upwards to escape them, she tried to keep her focus on the heart. Stel lurched in her seat as she was impacted from behind and dragged down to the floor, landing to find the amethyst mech on top of her.

"Didn't you get the memo..." Stel grunted as she tried to roll the Emissary without damaging the cannon on her shoulder. She tried to bring the energy sword back around but the mech's tackle was well-placed, and hundreds of those smaller creatures were swarming the pair, two of them mounted on the Emissary's canopy and trying to claw into the cockpit. Stel struggled to find a way out when she remembered what they all were; linked.

With a desperate move, Stel plunged the energy sword into the deck of the ship and all the creatures, and the mech, locked up as a scream echoed in the room. Stel used the chance to put all she could into her thrusters and get away, with a single moment of freedom, she heard the ping that the pulse-wave cannon was ready.

Rolling the Emissary, Stel deactivated the energy sword on the wrist of the mech and reached up to grab the pulse-wave cannon's barrel, ensuring it wouldn't change angle.

"See you all in hell..." Stel muttered, hoping that wherever Ryn had ended up, he was grinning down at her. The pulse-wave cannon shot a brilliant blue beam of energy, piercing the heart of the world-eater and exploding through to the deck behind it.

The ship began to rupture all around her, explosions of red ooze and metal tearing all through the chamber. Stel flicked her power over to thrusters only to see a heart-wrenching notification:

Low Power

She gasped in pain as a piece of the ship collapsed onto the Emissary, dragging her to the deck as the world-eater began to collapse. With a tremendous explosion, spanning continents wide, the chamber began to tear apart, the different "arms" of the world-eater each taking a chunk of the heart's chamber with it as the ship separated and fell apart.

Stel breathed a sigh of relief as the Emissary held together and was freed from its pinning on the deck, but watched as space opened up above her, and Old Earth gleamed up at her. She felt a tug of movement as the Emissary attempted to rise, but couldn't get far, too badly damaged. Deciding she'd rather not go down with this arm of the world-eater, Stel rolled herself free of the collapsing ship and into the open stratosphere, hurtling toward Old Earth, a cone of orange forming around her as the Emissary entered the atmosphere.

"Guess... I... made it..." Stel grunted to herself as the little blue mech hurtled like a comet toward the old, dead world. Unable to coax any further power from the machine, Stel resigned herself to the impact.

"See you soon, Ryn..."